A School in the Cloud

 Watching this TedTalk made me feel a number of emotions watching it. At first, Sugata Mitra was telling us that education is obsolete.  I found myself feeling defensive. If education is obsolete, does that mean that teachers are also obsolete? What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life if there is no need for me? What about the students who don't have access to technology? What about the students with learning differences who need the extra support? But as the video continued, I found myself agreeing with some of his points. Our system here id definitely broken, and definitely needs an update. But how do we actually update our system? 

This One of the things that stood out to me in this TedTalk was when Sugata Mitra talked about how he could not get the kids a teacher but he could get them a 22 year old accountant. Without her having actually taught them anything, and just providing positive reinforcement, the scores of these children made a huge jump. I think that this example alone, shows that children need someone there to guide them and push them to understand what they are doing in learning.  I felt as though this example shows us not that education is obsolete, just that it isn't what it used to be, which is another point that Mitra makes. What once worked for education, is now stifling creativity. And Mitra tells us that "we need to shift that balance back from threat to pleasure", which makes complete sense. 

So many times when people describe their favorite classes, or teachers, or the lessons they remember, it doesn't have much to do with tests, or the content, but instead how much fun they were having, or the relationships that they had with their teachers. In all of Mitra's experiments, he finds a similar result. He describes that "the teacher sets the process in motion and then stands back in awe and watches as learning happens". TI still find myself struggling to buy into this concept, but I guess I have seen similar things happen in my own classroom . I always worry that the students aren't learning enough because I am not providing them with constant direct instruction, but based on what Mitra says, I guess I'm not doing as horribly as I thought. After a quick google search, it looks like Sugata Mitra has published a book surrounding this idea of the school in the cloud, which might be a good next step to further understanding what he believes education should look like!